I’ve also gotten pretty good with eyeliner, but it’s mostly the hormones.

(This feels a bit weird to talk about, but if I was reading this blog, I would want me to talk about it. Plus, I already posted all of this on social media, so it’s not like this is secret info, or anything.)

Three months on hormones and the results have been absolutely magical. I’ve got noticeable breasts, heavier thighs, smoother skin and my body hair growth has slowed. There’s been some subtle changes to my face, where what few edges I had in my round face have been softened to match the rest of it. Also, my nose has shrunk.

All the cartilage in my body has shrunk. My feet are a size and half smaller than they used to be, and I’m an inch shorter.

Of all the changes, that’s thrown me for a loop the most–I’ve been 5’11” with giant feet since I was 13. And it’s not that one inch or a shoe size is really that big a change, just that it changed at all.

I don’t like to think of myself becoming an entirely new person–though I know a lot of trans folk do, and that distinction is something they need. I wanted to think of this as just another step in who I am, like when I started wearing ties all the time. But when there’s physical changes like this, it’s clear that there’s more going on. I look different than I did a year ago. Not a lot, but it’s there. And the changes are only going to get more pronounced.

This is wonderful and exciting and…scary. It feels like one of those fairy tales where you find out the cost of getting your heart’s desire. I’ll finally be the “me” I always wanted to be, but I’ll have to figure out who she is.

And I suppose that should have been obvious, but it only hit me when these clear physical changes started happening. Blame it on being a visual learner, I guess.

I should add, that this level of change so quickly is not an average experience. In fact, I was mentally prepared for things to take a lot longer. Every body reacts to HRT differently. My body is either very comfortable with change–I used to put on muscle very quickly, too–or this is something my body has been wanting for a long time.

Either way, I’m ecstatic that these changes are happening, and I am looking forward to see where they lead.

Speaking of going through changes, there’s been two Frankenstein’s Support Group for Misunderstood Monsters since my last newsletter. Both of them focus on Ginger, a werewolf variation I’ve really been enjoying writing. Click on the tiles below for Chapter 2:

I really love this comic, and if you love it to, spread the word! The more people see the comic, the longer Quirk will have me do it!

We took Wednesday to Target the other day, and came face-to-face with the merchandising juggernaut that is Star Wars paraphernalia. While fans of anything that has “Star” in the title, our house is mostly free of LucasFilm merch, beyond the odd t-shirt, art book and my hand-crafted lightsabers. All that changed when our darling daughter came face to fuzzy face with a porg. Porgs, for those who don’t know, are little aliens indigenous to the planet Luke Skywalker has been hiding out on, and they are industrial-strength cute. Our daughter could not resist. She grabbed a stuffed plush porg off the shelf and didn’t let go.

This is a pretty mean feat, as Wednesday has just learned how to control the “let go” function of her hands. The porg’s desirableness overwhelmed her love of grabbing things only to drop them. The fact that she held onto it for any length of time is a tribute to the designers.

It also does these little chirping sounds when you squeeze it that make her giggle. So of course, we had to get one.
We’re doomed, aren’t we?

J.R. and I are clearing out a bunch of old costumes to make room for new ones, so take advantage of my desire to get these things out of the house and look as cool as I do this Halloween! Sizes are marked where they exist, but some of this stuff was made from scratch (I was 5’11” and around 225lbs in most of these pictures, if that helps).

Leave a comment or shoot me an email at freeplanetx at gmail if you see anything you like!

BATMAN

I love this suit, I’ve worn it a bunch, so it’s seen some wear and tear. Custom-made unnitard with built-in shoulder pads (slight discoloration around the neck),boots (sz 12, with repaired zippers), black underpants (sz L), the belt on the right, gloves (one with a stuck zipper, but can still be put on) both chest symbols and the cape (unlined and unhemmed at the bottom, with an attached spandex hood), all of that go for $100. You can get the cowl on the left, which is still as nice at the day I bought it, for $200. SOLD!

Shirt (spandex and pleather, fully lined, with velcro-attached shoulder armor) and gloves (with attached claws). One of the shoulder armor pieces has a crack, and the claws have been repaired multiple times (they are not, in fact, made of adamantium). $40 SOLD!

Oh, wow. Been awhile, hasn’t it? Here, lemme blow all the dust of this newsletter and we’ll see if she still works. Test the gears, pump the breaks, make sure the crystals are still in alignment, all that jazz.

How have you been?

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my new daughter, Wednesday. She’s pretty cool. You’d like her.

The Voice of Free Planet X returns to The Philadelphia Podcast Festival with a brand new live show! In an effort to bring an understanding from two sides of an intergalactic conflict, VFPX host Jared Axelrod invites Salamander Keep (Phil Thomas) and Loam Sodden (Andy Holman Hunter) to debate. But how can they when they keep getting interupted by time-traveler Tiff Tock (Lizzy Hindman-Harvey)? And why is the Devil himself, Lucifer, Who Is The Morningstar (Russell G Collins) hanging around in the audience?

From the ends of space to the depths of Hell, The Voice of Free Planet X brings you the universe to the comfort of your seats at Tattooed Mom! Featuring a live musical performance by Gina Martinelli!

A note about the audio: We had some wonderful mics provided for us by Bridge Set Sound, but I wrote an episode that had everyone running all all over the place. So, some parts were not picked up by the good mics, and I’ve edited in bits recorded by my handheld recorder that I had going just in case. I’ve tried to make the edits as unobtrusive as possible, but there is a difference in sound quality.

We had a great turn out–thank you, all who showed up–and PhillyPodFest continues to be the best. Can’t wait until next year!

Seeing as how I’ve been immersed in comics recently, I’ve been wondering if I could I get away with a superhero comic without fight scenes? Where it was all the stuff surrounding the fights, but when one started, it would cut to the end.

“Yay, the hero won! Now back to the interpersonal drama…”

See, Chris Morse got me thinking about Power Rangers, which got me thinking about my sweet, sweet ghost children Ressha Sentai ToQger. who proved that superhero story structure is a lot sturdier than we think, and a lot of parts can be removed & it will still stand up. Which then got me thinking on how much of a standard superhero story I could break. I realize there’s a lot of superhero comics and movies that do this, but they’re either parodies or stripped of all the genre’s glorious weirdness in favor of a more “grounded” approach.

The closest thing to what I’m thinking of is Hannah Blumenriech’s Spidey comics, but I’m not sure if that would work with a totally new character. Maybe it would? I dunno. I’ll stew on it.

Right now, though, I’ve got play with my baby and draw more Frankenstein stories!

As a co-writer, she doesn’t offer much, but the company she provides far makes up for it.

Recent events–The Man In The High Castle TV show, Marvel’s Secret Empire crossover, current politics–have meant a lot of speculation of how the Nazi’s might have won WWII. I am hardly immune. As a lover of history, I’ve always been fascinated by the individual choices that lead to massive, world-wide changes. It’s amazing how the petty actions of a few can change the lives of the many.

For example, I’ve been studying the post-Civil War Reconstruction, and the ways pro-Confederacy ideals wormed their way into American society and government despite having lost the war is absolutely horrifying. We’re still dealing with it, over a hundred years later.

So, if I was going to pull a Nazis-Win scenario, that’s the one that makes the most sense. The ground war is won by the Allies, and everyone pats themselves on the back. But the Nazi ideas have already taken root, and America, rather than looking ashamedly away from the Japanese-American internment camps it put up during the war, decides to double-down on them. “This is why we won,” the rhetoric goes. “Our American purity must be protected.” So the camps are expanded, which turns out to be not a hard sell in an America that’s still has whites-only water-fountains…

There is, of course, an argument that the reality described above is not that “alternate” at all

I’ve been a mother officially for a month now. Wednesday remains the chillest of all possible babies, a sign that she’s more of a fiendish plotter than a uncontrollable screamer. It is, after all, always the quiet ones.

What’s perhaps the most surprising about all of this is how natural it has all felt. As I was saying to JR, it’s not like there was a hole in our relationship that Wednesday has filled. Rather, it’s that she just snapped in right next to us, fitting into our irregular edges as well as we fit into each other.

It’s been really great to have her around. I foresee grand adventures with this, the third member of our party.

When I was 11, my parents took me to get my eyes checked. There was nothing noticeably wrong with my vision, but I was at the age my father needed glasses, my mother needed glasses, and my older sister needed glasses. Later, it would be the age my younger brother needed glasses. Biology does not always lead to destiny, but it never hurts to check.

I was shown the standard jumble of letters on the chart on the far wall, and I asked to read as much as I could. In an act that sums up who I am more than I’d like to admit, I read past the point where the eye doctor told me stop, and then apologized for not being able to read the last line.

The verdict was, rather than need glasses, I possessed “better than Perfect Vision,” which is a phrase I’ve always liked. Subsequent checks at the DMV have proven that my better than perfect vision is hanging in there, despite my predilection for reading in very low light, practiced over several decades.

All of this is to say, I often see things others don’t. The proverbial eye for detail.

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures recently. My daily “take a picture of my outfit” photo habit has increased to include multiple pictures of my darling daughter, and of my face. The documentation of Wednesday is obvious: she’s adorable, and has already changed considerably in her first two weeks of life. I’ve noticed. Better than perfect vision, remember. And she’s a better than perfect baby. The angel is in the details.

The need for pictures of my face, however, comes from an entirely different place. My better than perfect eyes see too much. See all the flaws that makeup cannot hide, the tells and giveaways. Despite my efforts to present myself as feminine, I can see the ways I’m falling short. I’ve been doing pretty well for not doing it for very long, but I can see the lengths I still have to go.

Still apologizing for not going far enough, as ever. You’d think I’ve grown out of it by now.

So I need the imperfect lens of the camera, the approximations and half-measures that make up photography. I need to have pictures of myself because I can see too much in the mirror. In the photos, gloriously blurry with digital imperfections, I can see me without worrying about details. It’s remarkably comforting.
It was not uncommon for me crop my face out of my “Today’s Style” photos. Now, I take proper selfies with the best of ’em.

The biggest change has been this little bundle of joy, my daughter Wednesday. She is, as near as I can tell, the best baby, full of joy and screams and little songs she sings to herself. Or, possibly, to us. Which is very sweet if true.

Which makes me a parent, a mother, simply by virtue of her existing. A big change, 3 now, where there was once 2. But a welcome one.

I love her.

Continuing the theme of everything needing changing, I’ve been updating jaredaxelrod.com, putting in proper pronouns and a new photo. It’s weird thing to do, if I’m honest. It’s either a small thing that feels much more momentous or momentous thing that feels much more small. A change of a few letters. A new photo. Shouldn’t mean as much as it does, but it does.

So, here’s me saying it’s okay to be trans, in a conscious effort to live more truthfully. It would be easy to leave the old site up and just say “I’ll change it later,” never meaning to. But if the site is meant to show who I am, then it needed to change. My virtual self needed to keep in step with my meatspace one.

Also, can I just say? I look great in that photo.

Changes have happened over at the Patreon as well. I’ve moved the charges to monthly, rather than “per Voice of Free Planet X episode.” In an effort to give folks more stuff while the podcast is currently in production. There’s now weekly flash fiction, and audio versions of said flash, and selections from whatever I’m working on, depending on your reward level.

A week or so ago was #PitMad, aka “Pitch Madness,” aka “cram a description of your novel into Twitter and see if anyone likes it.” I’ve been trying to find an agent for my novel The Wish Of All Things, so I gave it a shot. I was not prepared for the response:

(note that updated avatar; changing everything)

Needless to say, I was floored by this response. Not all of those likes and retweets were agents, but a hefty percentage were. And even so, to have such a marvelous outcry of support for a measly one-sentence pitch–I didn’t even talk about the dragon!–was wonderful. I’ve gotten some good critique on The Wish Of All Things recently, and with this latest revision its the best its ever been. It’s hard not to send this version out and think “Is this the year everything changes?”

A staple of my wardrobe recently has been this fantastic fox-eared hat. I’m currently involved in a DnD campaign run by none other than Christiana Ellis, playing a charming, con-artist rogue, Muugen the Magnificent, who got cursed to look like strange fox/monkey creature. One of my fellow adventurers is Starla Hutchton (Beyond The Wall–ers Chooch & Vivid Muse round out the party), and she gave me this hat for X-Mas. I’ve been wearing it on the regular ever since.

Now, if you read the above paragraph and thought “Jared playing DnD with Christiana, Starla, Chooch and Viv sounds great! I wish I could listen!” have I got news for you! You can! Christiana has been releasing our game as a podcast called “So Many Levels.” I think it’s a hoot, and I’ve got some great plans for Muugen’s journey going forward.

Additionally, I’ve been writing humor pieces for Quirk Books. I really should have shown you to these earlier, since more than a few of them are VFPX ideas that never quite developed into full episodes. Here’s the full list, up to today:

I realize that’s a heaping helping of links to throw at you all at once. I’m going to attempt to make this blog a more regular thing, so that you’re alerted by where to experience my bits of weirdness in a more timely fashion.

Some ideas won’t leave you alone. For example, what might Jules Feiffer do if he turned his patented “explainer” style to a story where people don’t do much explaining at all. STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE, say.

I was just informed that Jeff Jeske, my college advisor, passed away. Jeff provided perhaps the only type of guidance I would have accepted at that age: “If that’s what you really want to do, here’s how you go about it.”

I almost didn’t graduate. I had failed a business class senior year, so I was two credits short. Not even a full class. That semester, with the help of a extraordinarily talented group of friends, I had put on a full-length play that I wrote. I’d like to claim that the play was why I failed the business course, but the fact of the matter was that I just couldn’t get into the material. Unlike the play.

I went to Jeff with the news of not being able to graduate, and while we talked about the possibilities of summer classes and the like, I brought out a longshot. Could I have the play, done through a club, count as a 2-credit independent study.

Jeff, to his credit, did not throw the idea out of hand. Instead, he looked a me, shrugged and said, as he always did, “If that’s what you really want to do, here’s how you go about it.”

He told me which forms I needed, how to fill them out, what they should say and who should sign them. And when I saw the dean not two hours later, a fist-full of papers in my hand, there was nothing he could do but sign off on it. My paperwork was ironclad. I graduated.

I usually tell this story as triumph of early-twenties optimism and outside-the-box thinking, and it is. But it couldn’t have had the happy ending it did without Jeff, who took my oddball idea and calmly laid out the way for it work.

I don’t think I’ve ever thanked him properly for all the guidance he’s given me. I don’t think I ever could.

What is this, a month later and I still haven’t talked about Episode 25? Well, it’s been quite a month. I’ll get into that in a moment. But first, Starchild!
This is an unabashed love letter to my wife, JR Blackwell. Doctor Mercury is her character–and that’s her posing as Mercury, underneath the layers of Photoshop in the title card–and I’ve been wanting to write something with her for awhile. Doctor Mercury was already established as part of Chris Morse’s Super Villain Corner, and having recently jumped over there, it seemed the perfect excuse to have her follow me back. Like all things my wife does, Doctor Mercury is an immaculate creation, a perfectly twisted power fantasy the likes of which fiction rarely sees. I’m not sure how much of this episode was me “writing” and how much was just letting Doctor Mercury do her thing. JR has read me her Mercury stories in that thick, delicious voice, so I getting her words on the page was surprisingly easy.

This was remarkably fun story to write. The whole “found audio” conceit allowed me to pull some actual horror around JR and my vamping. And it was nice to try my hand at some Lovecraftian-style terror, while at the same time making in feminist and, well, not racist.

Props to Sonia Williams, making her third appearance on the show, and absolutely nailing the transition from focused scientist to deranged madwoman. And simmilar props to new-comer Josh Hitchens, who I daresay is the best screamer in podcasting. Seriously, I asked that guy to just give me a scream, thinking we’d have to do a couple of takes to get the energy right, but he shook out a perfect one right out of the gate. I’ve been wanting to work with Josh for awhile, I just had to find the right character. And it seems like I made the right choice.

Speaking of collaborations with my wife…
We’re looking at an April publication date. Should be life-changing.

Speaking of life-changing, if you follow my Instagram or Twitter feed, you may have noticed I’ve stopped dressing like this:

And started dressing like this:

I’ve been experimenting with my gender identity over the past few weeks, and I’ve come to a few conclusions:

Presenting a feminine identity, both on the street and online, makes me happy. As in, “seemingly cured my depression in one fell swoop” happy. I used to view to myself as someone who had lots of different problems, but it looks like I just had one problem that affected me in lots of different ways.

I’m not changing my name. You can continue to refer to me as “Jared.”

I haven’t come down on specific pronoun preference, yet. “He” is fine, I’m still testing the weight of “she,” and I’ve never had a problem with the singular “they.” So, really, all pronouns are fine.

I do intend to keep wearing ties.

Whether this a wholesale shift in my gender from male to female, or just some genderqueer wardrobe additions remains to be seen. I’m still exploring this, and there’s no real map to speak of. But the journey has been nothing but positive so far, so I’m content to continue on and see where I end up.

Post navigation

Jared Axelrod is an author, an illustrator, and a world changer. Through out her eventful life she has also been a circus performer, a puppeteer, a graphic designer, a sculptor, a costume designer, a podcaster and quite a few other things that she’s lost track of but will no doubt remember when the situation calls for it. But that “author’ business, that seems to be one she keeps coming back to.